Conceptual artist #20, (performance-based acting as his own receiver, he’s seeking a signal from the airwaves for over a decade), 2023.
Hernan Bas’s show, The Conceptualists at the Bass Museum of Art, is exciting. Conceptual Art refers to various artistic practices from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, emphasizing the concept (or idea) instead of the physical object. We need to unpack the theory since conceptual artists are considered art theorists. A reference theory of meaning claims that the meaning of a word or expression lies in what it points out in the world.
However, for this “reference” to become art, we need this pointing out to be or become aesthetic. If so, one can say:
Art is the concept behind it.
As such: chair, photo of the chair, and chair definition. Let’s call Kosuth’s method of presentation a first-order reference.
In The Conceptualists, however, Bas sort of presents a first order reference —then subverts it— by making it bounce onto itself.
The folding
In The Conceptualists, the protagonist and his alter ego endure a series of “conceptual tasks,” which appear purposelessly banal.
According to plan, this redundant maneuver points to its ultimate world referent: BAS HIMSELF.
The folding happens via the painting’s title.
Above, you see a painting minus its title. That is, boxing reduced to pillow fighting.
The reference to the world is already there. But without the title, there’s no reference being folded back onto itself.
Czech theorist Jan Mukařovský has an interesting thesis. What we take as “banal” remains a suspect choice precisely because of its presumed hierarchy. Mukařovský counsels looking at neglected things differently, as (potential) redeeming notes, legitimate subjects of aesthetic investigation.
Use Mukařovskýs glasses to look at Bas’ show:
Conceptual artist #36 (his site-specific wall drawings are created after a night’s sleep in purportedly haunted locations), 2023
In the painting (above), the artist takes a break from drawing on the wall (trompe l’oeil adds a certain je ne sais quoi). Observe how the title and painting do not necessarily coalesce. They perform a conceptual dance.
It’s daytime (the semi-opened window proves it). The artist sits, hands dirty, on a disheveled bed. The reddish drawings are glued to the wall underneath the superimposition of the crayon drawing. He looks outside the painting (the painter? or the observer?).
Nah. He’s self-absorbed.
Does the artist have this thing of doing site-specific art in purportedly haunted locations? Keep in mind Mukařovský’s point (nothing is what it seems).
Radical distancing
Here comes Ortega Gasset’s lesson in The Dehumanization of Art:
The creators of new art give their works a dehumanized aesthetic by radically distancing themselves from the “lived” reality … their daily existence (objects, spaces, living beings, inorganic beings): it is this radical distance in the gaze that allows them to make the leap from the “lived” reality to the “contemplated” reality.
In phenomenology, “distance” means a lack of presence. From the perspective of conceptual art, one could retort that a lack of presence presupposes presence. Using Ortega’s favorite metaphor, missing the trees from the forest presupposes the former. The retort from conceptual art: What if presence is absent? One can see a tree and yet miss it altogether!
Conceptual artist #18 (spirited for urban legends, he fabricates roadside memorials from which to hitchhike), 2023
Bas’s title (above) suggests the hitchhiker standing at a “fabricated” memorial. Is this young man really hitchhiking or—judging his demeanor—“posing,” as it were?
It looks too perfect: the trees, the clean, well-paved, sinuous road. Is it really raining?
The more one looks, the more open-ended everything seems. Bas’ conceptual maneuver is more interesting and fun than Kosuth’s late 1960s didacticism. The strategy is so sleek that, in the end, one accepts the insoluble back-and-forth conceptual dissonance.
Conceptual artist #24 (his multidisciplinary works are cultivated from the periodic table), 2003
Doesn’t Conceptual artist #24 folded-on-self mise-en-scène seem apparent? The artist’s empty performance fulfills itself by automatically emptying itself of purported meaning (Ortega calls it “dehumanized, contemplated reality”).
His conceptual artist #28 recalls a passage from Fin de siecle French in literature and sensibility,
Falling for the conceptual trap
Someone by the name of Douglas Markowitz covered the show for The Miami New Times. Here’s a paragraph:
Each piece in “The Conceptualists” engages in the melodramatic yet ridiculously unserious artistic discipline that one usually sees in parodies of the art world like The Square or Velvet Buzzsaw. They all look somewhat alike, all possessing the same slim, androgynous build and gaunt complexion that has become a hallmark of Bas’ paintings. Obvious craftsmanship and attention to detail aside, the series presents something rare in contemporary art: classically inclined, representational work meant to be purely funny.
Let’s see:
1. Each piece?
2. Melodramatic yet ridiculously unserious artistic discipline.
3. Classically inclined, representational work meant to be purely funny.
Markovitz’s reductive concoctions aside: what is he talking about?
Conceptual artist #21 (his formative work, “Prom Night,” marked the beginning of a career of works based on acts of disappointment), 2023
Doing the dirty work
Here’s a photo of Bas in his studio (via The New Times). It looks like he’s actually “doing” the dirty work of painting faces, hands, flowers, balloons, etc.
Bas’s art has grown technically and conceptually. He is not in 1894, amidst the apotheosis of nineteenth-century l’art pour l’art (Oscar Wilde still walking down Tite Street in Chelsea, sane and free).
Stoically (decadents are stoic), Bas adapts to our dull postmodern reality.
The themes of the early 2000s reappear, though Bas’ self-referential mal du Siècle appears filtered by a skillful—if florid at times—self-parody. His alter ego is now protean, witty, and less obviously effeminate.
Titling
Conceptual artist #3 (chewing gum every working hour of the day, he considers “Bubblegum Alley” his archive)
Lastly, Bas’ paintings would not work without his titling style. Take Conceptual art #3 above as an example: We see the artist blowing up a bubblegum ball and walls collaged with bubblegum. The title describes what the artist does while explaining his objective in (what some already label “curatorial language”) an over-the-top plan that throws off the balance between signified and signifier.
(This last painting is Bas’s smorgasbord)
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